Sitting Down with Mike Friday
Sitting Down with Mike Friday
Goff Rugby Report sat down for about an hour with Mike Friday this week to talk about his tenure as the USA Men’s 7s Head Coach.
Friday has his detractors, to be sure, and certainly (as we’ll see) he has moments he shakes his head about, but it’s also fair to point out that he has quite a legacy. Before Friday, the USA had never achieved the consistent heights
In his 10 season, the USA won three tournaments and made the podium 16 times. They finished top six six times, and as high as 2nd (2018-19). Five separate players made the season Dream Team: Danny Barrett, Folau Niua, Stephen Tomasin, Ben Pinkelman, and Perry Baker, who was named three times.
Baker was named World Sevens Player of the Year twice, and Friday was named Coach of the Year for the 2018-19 season. A USA player was among the top-five try-scorers in every season, with Carlin Isles leading the league twice and Baker once. Both Baker and Madison Hughes led the Series in points scored for a season.
And certainly you can say through all of that time, the USA garnered additional respect. They were a respected and, at times, feared team before. But it all took a big step thanks in part to a special group of players.
The past two years the USA finishes have dropped off. Although it’s interesting to point out that in the 2022-23 season, the Eagles they were 2nd after four tournaments. Four bad finishes in the final six events dragged them down to 10th.
In 2023-24, the new format ended up hurting the USA. If you lost in the quarterfinals you didn’t get a 5th-place semifinal. Instead you were tracked to the 5th-place game or the 7th-place game based solely on points difference in the tournament, regardless of record.
It was a format that seemed to always send the USA to the 7th-place game and overall could have cost the Eagles two spots in the standings. Friday thinks the team should have been 7th, or even 6th, in the standings, instead of 9th.
“I think 6th is what we deserved to be, and for want of two extra games is could have been more fair,” Friday told GRR. “One through four plays out; nine through 12 plays out. Why can’t 5th through 8th play out? It could have been a nightmare for us. I think it affected the players—perception-wise they were having a terrible season but really they had significantly improved from the year before when we fell away in the second half.”
That format should change for 2024-25.
Looking Up While Looking Ahead
But while the USA team this year had to play in the requalification tournament because they finished 9th, and they took 8th in the Olympics, Friday also points to some reasons for optimism.
“Only Ireland got to more quarterfinals than us,” he said. That is true. The USA made six quarterfinals out of seven tournaments. Ireland made every final eight. Top points-earners Argentina made six out of seven, as did Australia, Fiji, and France. New Zealand and South Africa missed the quarterfinals on two occasions each.
And he draws parallels with the 2017-18 season. In that season the USA won the Bowl twice, finished dead last in their opener, lost four quarterfinals, and then made the top four three times, taking 4th twice and winning in Las Vegas.
A year later they made the semis in every tournament and took 2nd overall.
Friday told GRR he feels the 2024-25 iteration of the Eagles 7s could be in a similar situation.
How each of the Sevens World Series nations that are consistently near the top did each year.
“The big difference is expectations. When I came in in 2014 there were zero expectations and we were given a 10% chance to make the 2016 Olympics,” said Friday. The person who told him they had that 10% chance was then-USA Rugby CEO Nigel Melville. Friday’s response was: “I know I can make this team better.”
And he did. They improved quickly, held steady for a while, and then took that big step forward.
“The reality was that the 2019 was really well balanced,” Friday explained. “We had physicality and power and speed and guile. We had time together under zero expectations and we were allowed to grow together. They were consistent in their journey.”
If 2019 Had Been 2021
Unfortunately, the Olympics came a year too late. COVID forced Tokyo 2020 to be pushed back to 2021. And despite the fact that had they played in 2020 the USA would have been without Folau Niua (who was injured at the time), Friday feels the team in 2020 would have medaled.
“COVID upset us culturally,” he said, adding that the team felt abandoned. “It was hard for us.”
In the end, in 2020, they blew a 21-0 lead and even then had a chance to hang on but for an inability to catch the restart. It was a heartbreaking tournament for the team, and a missed oppourtinity.
For Friday, that Olympics, along with the quarterfinal loss at the RWC 7s in 2018, sticks with him.
“We should have got on the podium in Tokyo; we didn’t take it when we had it,” he said.
The COVID shutdowns also made it difficult for the team to assemble and stay together. And then as the players started to retire or pull away—Ben Pinkelman, Danny Barrett, Madison Hughes, Folau Niua—Friday didn’t always find a like-for-like replacement.
“In 2020 we didn’t have time together and you can’t just pick up where the old group finished,” Friday said. “There were two years in a country where rugby was turned off. We didn’t have the athletic or rugby depth, but believe it or not I think the playing group we have now, there are guys coming in who can kick-on if they have the right environment and financial support from World Rugby and USA Rugby.”
Friday Urges More Backing for a New Future
Several of these players are on the cusp of becoming the main part of the USA team—Peter Sio, Nick Hardrict, Noah Brown, Jack Wendling, and Will Chevalier, for example. Add in the guys who have made the team as regulars already—Lucas Lacamp, Orrin Bizer, Faitala Talapusi—and you’ve got a core.
As he goes out the door, Friday’s concern is funding. Sure, it’s true, that medals bring dollars (just look at the USA women). So a lack of an Olympic medal could signal a drop in funding. Friday used this interview to lobby for more.
“My worry is that the USOPC will pull back,” he said, adding that USA Rugby is relying on outside money to fund the 7s programs—World Rugby grant money and philanthropy being the chief sources. “The Golden Eagles have been the unsung heroes of this program and over the last several years have probably put $10 million into the men’s and women’s programs. When USA Rugby’s bankruptcy happened, the Golden Eagles ensured that we kept the lights on. I am over the moon that Michelle Kang has come in to fund the women. We need someone on the men’s side, too.”
It’s not one massive donation, either, said Friday. Consistency of support, and knowing what’s there each year, is important. He added that he thinks both teams need about $3.5 million.
Much of that money would go to development. Friday spoke about how the Golden Eagles funded the USA U23s that won the RugbyTown Sevens in 2023. But winning such tournaments is less important than playing them.
“We don’t have to win. Look at when we had Lucas Lacamp on the team and we lost every game.”
The U23s return to RugbyTown for 2024.
But it’s more than that, said Friday.
“In order to track some of these players’ development we need appropriately-funded development programs,” he said. “It is currently very hard for an 18-year-old to come through to the national team if they’ve been brought up playing rugby in America. They’re able to compete physically but our 22-year-old is where an 18-year-old from somewhere else is. We’ve got to improve the coaching and educate the coaches—I say this with no malice. But we don’t have a program to help coaches and knowledge-development for young players. All of that, again, comes down to money.”
Friday has been working with some international 7s players to bring them into the coaching ranks and it remains to be seen whether they will blossom there. He did not suggest who should be his replacement.
What he did say was that there needs to be more work within the 7s pathway, and that 7s and 15s pathways should not be separate.
“We have to finance taking the U18s to the World Schools in NZ,” he said. “We should have a pathways season for U18s—World Schools, Dubai, Rosslyn Park. I also think we should not pigeonhole a player as a 15s player or a 7s player. They should get a good, balanced diet of both. I’d love to see Dom Besag in a 7s camp.”
The Players
There’s all the likelihood that we will see Perry Baker retire soon. Perhaps the most consequential American rugby 7s player ever, Baker was a huge part of Friday’s success. And, yes, you have to have the players.
“Perry and Carlin were unique to us,” he said. “Carlin lived with me when he came to England. His development was all in front of the camera which was very difficult. It’s very hard to find someone like that. David Still was on a track, but it’s not just about athleticism. You need a determination and a single-mindedness. The crossovers do take time.”
Friday does not envy the coach who has to replace Isles, Baker, or Kevon Williams.
“I have a soft spot for all three of them,” he said. “Madison Hughes I clicked with and we made a powerful combination and I felt the same with Kevon. I had a love-hate relationship with Danny Barrett and we can’t forget Matai [Leuta}. The cuddly Fijian who always made sure everything was together.”
The great Martin Iosefo also got shoutout from Friday, laughing at "Party Marty" but with respect.
Every player who has been a star for the USA has had someone step into his shoes … except, perhaps, one.
“Folau was the one person we never replaced,” said Friday, quietly. “When I first got to know him he’d say to me ‘you don’t like me.’ And he’d say I treated Maka [Unufe] different from the way I treated him. Then in London he met my youngest son, Lucas, for the first time. I pointed to Lucas and said ‘I am different with Lucas than I am with my other son, Harrison. They’re different. But do I love one any less than the other?’”
The USA team office kept photos of each player and they were posted on a board to indicate their status (injured, healthy, selected for the next event … things like that). But when a player retired, his photo was no longer there.
“It killed me to take Foau’s picture down from the roster board,” said Friday. “I put it above my desk instead.”
Mike Friday has his detractors. That’s understandable. Certainly not everything has gone right. But it’s also fair to say that, as we pointed out at the beginning of this piece, the USA has hit successes that now make expectations much higher.
“I am proud of what we did but I am more proud of seeing the men the players have become,” Friday concluded. “I do look back with pride, and I think what I did do was make people in the USA believe. I made you and the world believe that we deserve to be there. The USA is a feared team. Nobody wants to play us. Nobody wants us in our group.”
Photo David Barpal
